On March 19, 1888, only eight years after the foundation, St. Frances Cabrini received the Decree of Praise. She wrote: “Blessed be the Most Holy Heart of Jesus, at last the grace is accomplished, the Decree was signed and in this week I will be able to have it. A grace truly signaled while there were two institutes ahead of ours and many important matters to be dealt with and instead, the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation left the rest to deal with ours on the very day of the grace of St. Francis Xavier and I had the news yesterday because St. Joseph wanted to be the messenger of such consoling news…”.
On March 19, 1889, the first seven Sisters, after a rite of envoy and after having received the Crucifix of the Missionaries, left for Milan, since the following day they were to take the train for Paris. This is what L’Osservatore Romano wrote: “On the day of St. Joseph, in the nearby town of Codogno, a moving function took place. In the Salesian Convent the inauguration of the new Mission of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart destined to cross the Ocean, in order to cooperate with the Missionaries of the Congregation founded in Piacenza by Mons. Scalabrini, to the Evangelization of the poor Italian emigrants”.
